Tag: farm life

Rev your engines and head out to Combine City for a chuckle-worthy spoof of Amarillo’s famous Cadillac Ranch.

Even though I went in search of this unusual sight about ten miles southeast of Amarillo, seeing it in person brought to mind visions of Tow Mater and Lightning McQueen out tractor-tipping in the animated Pixar movie ‘Cars.’

See the resemblance? Gotta love people with a sense of humor and the gumption to make a vision come true! And…just for the record…this installation began several years before the 2006 movie was released.

If a Cadillac buried bumper-up in the ground is considered art…why not a tractor?

In 2002 when Orville Ladehoff finished stripping the all the usual parts from his 1970 combine, he didn’t think it was worth the effort to cut the ‘carcass’ up to sell for scrap. His wife Gracie suggested that he just bury it…and that gave Orville an idea.

After digging a hole with his backhoe, the farmer slid the combine in with the front end rearing upward. Since the two-acre field he executed this feat in is next to Farm to Market Road 1151, other locals quickly noticed, and began bringing their own worn out combines to add to Orville’s collection.

He even purchased a few more, stripped them of parts and brought them to the ‘herd’ as well. The collection dates from the 1950s to the 1970s.

The last of the fourteen combines from to be planted (Orville prefers that word to “buried”) was in February 2008. But visitors still come to take photos – even senior photos, writers still pen articles about it, and the field of up-ended combines is still bringing smiles to all those who seek it out.